Mikey rushes over and takes Diana's vitals. Her breathing and heart rate are slow, but steady.
"What happened, Raph?"
Raph looks up at Leo, who had asked the question, and answers, "I'll explain later."
"Why not now? Mikey can take care of her," Leo replies, suppressed annoyance in his voice.
Raph ignores him and concentrates instead on getting the soaking wet rain coat off of Diana without hurting her.
"We have ta get her shirt off."
Mike stares at Raph, "Geeze, bro! I knew you liked her, but this isn't the way of going about it!"
Raph glowers at Mike, "That's NOT why! She has the needle part of a dart in her back, an' we gotta get it out!"
"Oh..." Mikey says, "Don, Leo, maybe it would be best if you left."
Leo nods and guides his brother from the room.
Raph gently holds Diana up as Mike slides the shirt over Diana's shoulders.
Splinter takes one look at the welt on Diana's back and says to Mike, "Perhaps you should leave as well."
Mike takes a look at the black and blue welt and nods, knowing that he will not want to be around for what Splinter will have to do.
With Mike gone, Splinter takes out a knife and tells Raph to continue holding Diana.
Raph holds her. He figures out what Splinter was about to do, and he buries his face in her hair as Splinter cuts to find the needle pushed under her skin and deep into the muscle.
The Dark Master glares at George and the five others cowering in front of him.
"You had her in your grasp, and you let her GO?!?!?!" he screams the last word.
George, since he was in charge of the last mission, is expected to answer.
"Well, we were coming back, and I had her on my shoulders and she just sort of disappeared," George answeres in a frightened voice.
"'Just sort of disappeared.' George, you can't even make up a decent excuse," the Dark One says in disgust.
George winces and bows low, all the way to the ground.
"It is the truth, oh great one. One moment I was carrying her on my shoulders, and the next, I felt a breeze and she was gone."
The Master seems to grow larger for a second and then shrinks back down to his regular size, as if surprised.
The Master...surprised?
"Did any of you notice a sword with the girl?" the Master asks in a dangerously quiet voice.
When he thinks about it, George does remember seeing a sword at her side.
"Y-yes, my liege," George stammers.
"Do you have this sword?"
George cringes. "No, we did not think it was necessary to disarm her after the drugs from the dart knocked her out. We didn't think that she would be able to escape."
George can sense annoyance and anger from the Master.
"You did not disarm her? You fool!" The Master sighs. "Do you at least have the dart?"
George looks at the man who was in charge of the darts.
The man looks as pale as a blank sheet of paper.
"N-no, M-master. It-it seems to have di-dissap-peared," the man stutters, visibly shaking.
"IMBECILES!" the Master rages, "GET OUT OF MY SIGHT, YOU STUPID LITTLE WORMS!"
They all almost run out of the chambers.
The dark form rests its head on it hand.
"She has the sword. Now I MUST have her in my possession, with her power being increased threefold!"
Diana opens her eyes and feels someone holding her hand. She looks over and smiles.
"How did I know it would be you holding my hand?" She says in a weak voice with a little grin.
Raph grins, "I dunno. How you feelin'?"
Diana takes stock of her body. She's rather tired and her back hurts a lot.
She smiles, "Well, my back hurts like hell and I'm really tired, but aside from that, I'm fine," she squeezes Raph's hand.
Raph smiles back, "You should probably go back to sleep, then."
She nods, and tries to reach over to cover his hand with hers, but the stitches in her back object and she grimaces, losing her breath to the pain.
"My back," she says after the pain is gone.
Raph nods, "It's ok, you sleep."
"Ok," and with that, she closes her eyes.
Raph gently puts Diana's hand on her stomach and tucks the covers around her. He stands and goes over to where the others are standing.
April and Casey are there with the other turtles. Splinter's meditating, seeing if he can get any info on who wants Diana.
"Is she ok?" April asks.
"She says her back was hurtin' and she was tired, bus aside from that, she says she's fine. She's asleep now," Raph answeres.
Don's studying the dart that Raph brought back and the needle fragment that was pulled out of Diana's back.
Leo looks at Don. "What do you think, Don?"
"I'm analyzing the drug used and a sample of Diana's blood from the needle right now in my lab, with my computers," he examines the dart and the needle in his hands. "I got some prints off of the dart, and after the comp is done with the samples, I'll hack into the police department and see if I can get a match."
Leo nods as he watches Raph go back and watch over Diana.
Chapter Eight
Chapter Ten
Realities Index